BUSINESSWIRE – Feb 1 – The Meet Group Inc., a leading provider of interactive dating solutions, is partnering with RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization to build safer communities, educate the public, improve public policy, provide assistance to survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. In addition, Catherine Connelly, SVP of Marketing and Co-founder of The Meet Group, will join RAINN's National Leadership Council.
Month: February 2021
Monet Is a New Doodle-based Dating App
THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN – Feb 1 – Two Penn students have taken a gap semester to develop a dating app after their project went viral on TikTok, attracting investors. They created Monet, a dating app that asks users to respond to a drawing prompt proposed by their potential match. The platform launched for iOS on Dec. 16, and has already had ~20K downloads. Their video, posted on Oct. 13, went viral within a day, attracting 570K views and 180K likes to date. Following the post's rise, venture capital firms reached out to the team about investing in the app. By December, Monet had closed its first round of funding, allowing them to raise ~$500K.
Whitney Wolfe Herd Becomes Youngest Woman to Take Tech Unicorn Public
WOMEN'S AGENDA – Feb 1 – At just 31-years old, Whitney Wolfe Herd has become the youngest ever female CEO to take a company public. Wolfe Herd has has an extraordinary career so far. She was one of the co-founders of Tinder, becoming its VP of Marketing a few years later. In 2014, she founded the female-focused dating and social app Bumble, which is now the second most downloaded dating app in the U.S. The app allows women to make the first move. As a woman, Wolfe Herd remains a minority in her sector. From a total of 442 companies that went public last year, only 4 had female founders or CEOs. Bumble has ~650 full-time staff and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It also has offices in London and Moscow and a data centre in Prague.
The Meet Group CMO/Co-Founder Catherine Connelly Interviewed by Ask A Matchmaker Maria
OPW – Feb 1 – Maria Avgitidis is a very accomplished matchmaker out of New York. Catherine Cook Connelly is SVP Marketing & Co-Founder of The Meet Group, and an IDEA 10 Year Club member. Maria has a new podcast called 'Ask A Matchmaker' and is a first-rate interviewer. Check it out…
Here's a few notes fyi…
- Dave and Catherine were in high school when they started the origin company, myYearBook. Geoff Cook joined a little later. Three siblings.
- They renamed myYearBook to Meetme after they realised members were using it to meet new people.
- They noticed it started becoming 'flirty' so figured they'd move into dating.
- The Meet Group was acquired by Parship for $500m in 2020.
- Meetme works especially well right now, during the pandemic, as it is video-first.
- Meetme is like a friendly neighborhood bar. Livestreaming one-to-many video is the key functionality.
- What's amazing about broadcast video is you can be on the platform and automatically engage with so many people.
- Users can also watch other users on a blind date.
- Leads into a really organic and serendipitous way of meeting.
- Users can also play their own dating game. Within 2 mins they need to decide if they will date them or skip them. – 18-40 is core demographic. Largely US.
- Over 4m DAU across all apps. Over 1m streaming monthly.
- Users spend 1.1B mins a month in the app.
- A place where introverts can feel more outgoing.
- The least favorite color for someone to be wearing is yellow, on Meetme.
- Million people streaming and 8-9m viewing a month. Its more common to be a viewer.